USF men's and women's basketball find success with American Conference road wins

Road victories can be hard to come by in college basketball, but the USF men's and women's basketball teams prevailed with American Conference wins in hostile territories.

The women held off UAB 70-65 in Birmingham to improve to 2-1 in the conference and 9-7 overall. One night later, the men dug down deep to beat a tenacious North Texas team 74-70 on the Mean Green's home court.

It was a nice bounceback for the men following last Sunday's disappointing 109-106 double overtime loss at home against UAB. They are now 1-1 in the American and 9-6 overall.

On the postgame radio show after the win, Bulls coach Bryan Hodgson called North Texas, "The most connected group we've played against all year. The way (head coach Daniyal Robinson) has those boys bought in defensively is phenomenal.

"We've only got them once this year on the regular-season schedule, so this one was huge. I'll tell you what --they're going to pop some people in this league because they guard. They're connected."

North Texas has the 12th-ranked defense in the country and held the Bulls, the top-scoring team in the American, 15 points under their average.

Isayiah Nelson had 17 points and 10 rebounds for the Bulls. It was his fifth straight double-double and his 11th overall.

USF freshman Caleb Sanders, who left the UAB game after taking a hard fall, did not play.

The men are at Tulsa on Saturday at 3 p,m. The Golden Hurricane is 13-2 but is coming off a 72-67 loss at North Texas.

Meanwhile, the women have rebounded nicely with two American wins after dropping the conference opener to Rice.

Katie Davidson had her best game since coming to USF, scoring 20 points.

"She did a real nice job. I'm glad to see her have a great game. She was due," interim head coach Michele Woods-Baxter said.

Edyn Battle was clutch with 18 points and six assists. She was 7-for-8 on free throws in the fourth quarter. L'or Mputu brought down a game-high 14 rebounds.

Still, Woods-Baxter said USF has things to clean up before the Bulls continue the road trip on Saturday at 3 p,m. against Memphis.

"I didn't think we made very good decisions," she said. "We didn't turn the ball over a lot, only 13, but we just got to make better decisions down the stretch."